(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
Francis Laurens Vinton was an American soldier and mining engineer.
Background
Francis Laurens Vinton was born on June 1, 1835, at Fort Preble, Portland Harbor, Maine. He was the son of an army officer, John Rogers Vinton, and Lucretia Dutton (Parker). His mother died in 1838, and his father was killed at the siege of Vera Cruz in 1847.
Thereafter, until 1851, when he was appointed to the United States Military Academy by President Fillmore, the boy was cared for by his uncle, Francis Vinton, who had left the army for the Protestant Episcopal ministry.
Education
Vinton graduated at West Point tenth in his class in 1856, but resigned within a few months and proceeded to France, where he entered the Ecole des Mines.
Career
After four years of study, Vinton returned to the United States, where he at once obtained a position as instructor in mechanical drawing at Cooper Union, New York City. In February 1861, he left to head an expedition to explore the mineral resources of Honduras but had barely started before the news of the outbreak of the Civil War caused him to return to the United States. He was commissioned captain in the 16th United States Infantry on August 5, 1861, and was soon given permission to raise a regiment, of which he was made colonel on October 31, 1861.
He commanded this regiment, the 43rd New York, with skill and distinction in the various battles of the Virginia peninsular campaign (March-August 1862). After September 1862, Vinton commanded a brigade in the VI Corps (Army of the Potomac) until he was wounded in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, so severely that he was never able to rejoin his command. Appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on March 13, 1863, he resigned less than two months later.
In the following year, when the School of Mines of Columbia College opened its doors, Vinton was selected by Thomas Egleston, whom he had known at the Ecole des Mines, to fill the chair of civil and mining engineering. After thirteen years in the chair, he resigned and went to Denver, Colorado, where he established himself as a consulting mining engineer.
Here, in addition to engineering employment, he found congenial work as Colorado correspondent of the Engineering and Mining Journal of New York, to which, during the next two years, he contributed well written and beautifully illustrated articles. On a professional trip to Leadville, Colorado, then coming to the height of its glory, he became infected with erysipelas and died within a few days, at the age of forty-four. His impressive funeral services were chiefly a recognition of the distinction of his military career but were attended by the most prominent mining men of the state.
Achievements
Francis Vinton remembered as a clergyman of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Parish in this City was also a West Point graduate, and served his campaigns before entering orders in the church which conferred upon him high honors.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Personality
A man of great personal charm and extremely popular with his students, Vinton taught such subjects as mechanical drawing and elementary civil engineering with great skill, but his presentation of mining was necessarily confined to European practice since he had had no contact with mining in America.
To a man who had successfully commanded a brigade of soldiers in combat, this must have seemed a task which offered but little scope for his real capacity. He was a man of considerable literary and artistic
culture.
Connections
There is no any information about his personal life.
